High School-TE Blocking Below Waist/Cut Block

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Rolling Wolf

We face an opponent this Friday night who pull their backside guard and tackle and cut block with the TE and they use about 2 foot splits. I will be talking to the white hat before the game to get his interpretation and how he is going to call it.

Usually teams using that style of play go with OL with little or no space between them, so in the FBZ. The "shoeshine" (as in to give your center a quick shoeshine by reaching your hands toward his feet) or "Superman" block tries to cut everyone rushing between center and end. Another problem occurs if the center is trying to block back into that space, because that can result in an inadvertent high-low or low-low combination.

Also if the shoeshining player is late, he might clip an opponent who's nearly past the neutral zone, or who's still in the neutral zone but turned away from the blocker. When someone dives into a sea of legs, it's got to be hard to tell whether he's hit any in the back. How do you rule if you think the blocker has hit the back of one leg and the front of the other leg of the same opponent? Is that in the "back" as used in the definition of clipping?

[Hand Signals]

Remember, if one toe of the tight end is in the FBZ than he is considered to be in the FBZ. Our association assumes the TE is in the zone.

[OKREF]

Speaking of the free blocking zone. I had a coach 2 games ago tell me that the defensive end can never be in the FBZ